Quid Raises $74 Million to Loan Money to Tech Workers—Using Their Startup Shares as Collateral
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
Quid, which loans money to employees at high-flying tech firms, has quietly raised $74.1 million in new funding, according to a disclosure filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Santa Monica-based company offers tech workers who are awarded equity a way to cash out early—a valuable proposition in an era when startups are choosing to stay private longer. Quid provides loans worth up to 35% of the value of an employee’s stock; in return, it charges interest rates around 7% and also receives a cut of the shares after a liquidity event such as an IPO or acquisition.
Since the only collateral involved is the equity itself, Quid says it only works with a select group of firms—at least two dozen at last count—that it deems worthy of the risk, including Airbnb, Bird and SpaceX. Quid, which launched in 2017, most recently raised $320 million for its second fund in late 2020, as dot.LA reported at the time.
Quid’s new $74 million funding haul came from just one investor, per the SEC filing. While representatives for the company did not respond to a request for comment, at least one LP—L.A.-based private equity giant Oaktree Capital Management—has publicly said it would partner with Quid on future funds. Coupled with the $420 million it raised across its first two funds, according to Crunchbase data, the new funding would take Quid to nearly $500 million raised to date.
Quid is unequivocally a Troy Capital production: it is led by Troy partners Josh Berman, Anthony Tucker, and Samit Varma, and is the sole company advertised on the Santa Monica-based venture capital firm’s website.
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
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